Academic gathering with a lich-Chapter 822 - 763: Turning Dark

The presence whom Jeremiah revered was in a foul mood at the moment. He sat on the cold steps, slowly pressing his index finger against his temple, his gloomy expression accompanied by a clear sound of gritting teeth. Lyle opened his eyes, and the ground in front of him was upturned. After the illusion left, the barren paradise reminded him of Cassandra’s bare wooden cabin.

The stark disparity in reality made the Master of Illusions constantly complain. His consciousness was connected to the spiritual network, feeling the joy and excitement of the illusions, while his loneliness echoed like an alarm clock that wouldn’t stop ringing. Switching his mental connection to one-way transmission, Lyle isolated his own negative energy from affecting those distant children.

"You are fleeing, not on a picnic!" For a week, the mixed team of illusions and Exiles moved leisurely, tasting food and spring water, singing and dancing, with the songs in the spiritual network never ceasing. Lyle deduced that the illusions had no concept of urgency; although they supported the Exiles, they did not support the crucial aspect of speed, but rather the facets of everyday life. The illusions were quite adept at serving others, and Nia, sharing the vision with Lyle, watched indignantly as they shared delicious food with the Exiles, food that should have ended up in her stomach, and it went on for a week. This caused Nia’s mood to align closely with Lyle’s; while he monitored the illusions, she angrily bit her fingertips on the side.

The reason for the illusions’ somewhat relaxed and negligent journey was Lyle himself. On Posuwa’s lands, beyond the unseen vision of the illusions and Exiles, resurrected Undead and Fallen Demon clashed. Receiving respect from the clan of illusions, Lyle’s quad-lock capabilities were greatly enhanced, lifting him to a higher spiritual plane which granted him the ability to remotely control the creation of Undead. Across the lands the illusions trod, Lyle’s will seeped into the earth, awakening the shattered remains; the war-torn Posuwa was an excellent graveyard, and he easily raised a large army of the Undead.

This skeleton troop underwent no spirit summoning transformation, possessing only the basic abilities of the Undead. However, their numbers were overwhelming, and Lyle’s newly reinforced spirit precisely issued orders to these direct subordinates. Although he couldn’t fine-tune individual Undead to perform the White Bone Spirit Summoning skills, some simple actions were within Lyle’s deft control. When the army of the Undead faced the Demon troops, those pursuing evil Demons all halted in their tracks.

Because they were embraced by skeletons. Joints locked, legs bound, heads trapped by spread ribs, or simply eyes gouged by finger bones. Demons, entwined in curses, could ignore bodily damage to become tireless butchers. But so were the Undead, virtually inexhaustible and more numerous, one, two, three... each Demon was entrapped by several skeletons into a ball. Even when they roared inhumanly in rage, barely a second after opening their mouths, charred femurs would stab directly into their throats.

The Fallen Demons struggled, screaming, engulfed in a forest of white bones, unable to move an inch. All soul flames burned the same color, Andrey’s star of darkness, executing its malevolence in Posuwa. Although direct beheading was more convenient, Fallen Demons, not like Liches with their Undeath, were just abnormal humans, only slightly stronger than ordinary people.

Lyle dismissed the simpler methods; after all, it was he who had ordered War Seeker Vaul to cease his slaughter, to put down the butcher’s knife, and it would be contrary to his principles to substitute himself in that role. Lyle understood freeing these Fallen could mean trouble, but he preferred not to be a hypocrite conflicting himself.

"But really, seven days and nights of controlling the dead, you guys are capable." Lyle had never thought the migration of the Exiles would take a week, and they had only completed more than half. During these seven days, Lyle’s magic and spirit were constantly drained, Nia starved, and he walked through the empty courtyard, breathing the cold wind, basking in the harsh sun. While the Exiles relished in fine food and shade, even the Fallen Demons mingled with the Undead, only he, like an empty-nest elder, remained in the paradise, where laughter and noise belonged to others. Sadness continuously grew in his mind, and every time Lyle thought about this, his blood rushed with anger, almost wanting to rush over on the spin of his spine and slap each of them, teaching the illusions hands-on what fleeing meant.

This impulsive thought quickly dispersed, the actions of the illusions were childish and naive, but what was so bad about that. Lyle, a leader who only knew how to dote, treated his subordinates and juniors with complete tolerance, not allowing them to suffer any harm, they could only be scolded by him.

The illusions thought the Exiles needed flowers and songs, believed that exile was a journey toward the land of milk and honey, believed the world was beautifully pure. Lyle would support them, isolate flames and cries, hide dust and wounds, creating a world without sorrow, forging a fence to protect the illusions, a paradise for them. Wanting to protect the pure-hearted illusions, they didn’t want to grow, then they didn’t need to. The juvenile Evil God would face pollution, this did not affect his guarding the inner purity.

So Lyle carefully concealed himself outside the world of illusions, striving to eliminate his own influence. Letting the illusions believe they independently helped the Exiles, and their leader, standing trustingly in paradise, showed a simple smile to the returning illusions.

The cold wind gradually calmed Lyle’s mind, and a frosted chariot appeared before him; wanderer Ivan took off his hat and bowed respectfully towards the steady illusion leader.

"Naslan sends his regards, sir."

Lyle nodded slightly, not moving the fingers that supported his temple.

"Mr. Lyle, where have the other illusions gone?" Ivan raised a question about the changes in the paradise, which seemed quite significant in less than a fortnight.

"They left, temporarily. My tribe found their own path, reaching out to the afflicted and leading them to climb the Southeastern Cliff of Posuwa."

"Crossing the Southeastern Cliff? Oh, the plateau occupied by the Earth Dragon at the summit?" Ivan nodded knowingly, not unfamiliar with the place as he had passed by occasionally.

His words made Lyle unable to maintain his calm any longer.

"Earth Dragon? What is that? Are there dragons there?!" Lyle stared at Ivan, his pitch-black pupils brimming with astonishment and chill.

"The Earth Dragon is a reptilian species that displays atavism. After the era of the dragons’ return, the world experienced a dragon calamity. The Dragon Blood Factor began to take effect, causing many closely related dragon species to change." Lyle knew the reasons better than Ivan, as he personally revived the Father of All Dragons; Mr. Dragon later dealt with the dragon calamity. Given the dragon blood turned creatures into powerful and crazed beasts, the father of dragons, to uphold the covenant with the Holy Light, naturally had to eliminate those dragon-transformed wild beasts approaching human territories. According to Mr. Dragon’s personal preference, the closely related dragon species dwelling far from human villages and living in remote jungles survived.

Thus the Earth Dragon still existed, because the Southeastern Cliff had never been touched by humans.

"I’ll handle it." Without hesitation, Lyle immediately set out to deal with the Earth Dragon. Even with Dragon Blood Factor, the Earth Dragon was still an uncivilized beast; upon encountering humans, undoubtedly, the shell-less primates would become its favorite prey. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Ivan led the carriage aside, giving way and softly reminded Lyle.

"Mr. Lyle, you now resemble Vaul in some aspects; the same power entangles you."

Lyle slightly startled, realizing that his recent impulsiveness and irritability were not entirely from within himself. The shadow of an ominous sign spiraled upward; from Lyle’s body, he plucked some black ominous aura, completely identical to the unusual aura on the Fallen Demon.

The malevolence of the Evil God, the curse of the Posuwa land, found Lyle.

[Your innate tendency to evil, the malevolence of Torre has been attracted by you.]

The ominous aura, which would drive ordinary people into frenzied bloodlust, made Lyle merely impulsive and irritable. The resistance of the Undead Legion against the Fallen Demon was also considered a confrontation. The god’s malice buried in the earth found its source in Lyle.

"A single session of self-psychoanalysis is needed to shake off the malevolence..." Lyle confirmed that the malevolence extracted by [Mystery] would not harm him. Lyle didn’t rid himself of the tainted malevolence but carried this unnamed fire and accelerated his departure from paradise.

"Thank you for the warning, Ivan."

"You are more suited than Vaul, Mr. Lyle."